Je panse donc j'essuie

Reuters, Sleepingroom, Flat (1)

Four socks were executed yesterday by lethal injection near the Sockdrawer Penitentiary, Chest-of-Drawers, Sleepingroom. They had been sentenced to death no less than two weeks ago, and had awaited the execution of their sentence in the Laundry as their appeal was examined – and rejected. It has been the first execution to take place in Sleepingroom for more than two years.

“No comment.” declared the official spokesperson of the Presidento-gubernatorial office, answering questions on why the President-Governor refused to grant amnesty to the four culprits, as she had done repeatedly in the past. It is rumoured that she succumbed to external pressure from Hermum, who allegedly declared that ‘should the socks be allowed to stay any longer in the Laundry, a total food embargo would be declared against the country, coupled with a total Internet deprivation’. Confirmation that blackmail took place however remains non-existent.

Two of the socks were accused of having more than three holes apiece, implying, as the sentence stated, that “they were totally corrupt, not apt to be ever worn again, and likely to cause great prejudice to the Feet”. Mr. Dumbledore, attorney at law defending the accused, however protested that no scientific tests were ever made to assess the size and location of the holes, whose existence was not denied. “When the courts do not carry out the very basics of inquiry, how can they even think of condemning garments to death? Shall we ever know how many innocents ever were unjustly executed due to gross laziness and incompetence within our own judiciary?

Critics to Mr. Dumbledore however point out that he fell asleep twice during audiences, is known to consume large quantities of suspicious sweets in court, and that his own clients tried to fire him, unsuccessfully, as they could not afford anything else than a court-appointed lawyer.

gm_weasley, defendant of the two other socks, stated in her closing speech in court that the case against them was even thinner. “Socks mate for life, this cannot be denied”, she declared, “yet does this mean a spouse is responsible for the holes of its partner? Does it mean they should automatically follow them in death as they did in life? Is it even the role of the court to judge about the implications of sock marriages? Is it really within our range of competencies to impose a restrictive framework on sock sexuality? Why shouldn’t sock spouses adopt different lifestyles, multiple partners; why shouldn’t they divorce and re-marry, if they so choose?”

Unfortunately for the two lawyers, the jury of twelve drawers designated by chance had a different opinion.

The execution was private, no journalists were allowed to bear witness of the socks’ last moments. Representants of the Red Cross Committee were not allowed either, thus raising questions of how humane the execution actually was. Official spokesman for the Sockdrawer Penitentiary Billy Rose declares that “guidelines are clear. The convict is firmly seized by the executioner, and injected into the thrash, a procedure that usually proves lethal for it as soon as the bin is emptied.”

This procedure is thought barbarous by 85% of the Flatians (2) who critic the harshness of the sentence. “A sock’s agony can last several days if the bin is not emptied right away” says Jeanne Baez-Bartout, former film star and president of the AT-PUSS. The traditional mode of execution – chopping a sock’s holes off – was reputed to be both more mild, death occurring quickly and painlessly, and more egalitarian, the sock’s fate not depending of bin-emptying occurrences, a factor money and influential relatives could have impact on. European law concerning the proper removal of domestic refuse however banned this procedure, as it did not respect the standard trash sorting directives.

Why this execution? It is supposed that this sentence, coming after two years of pardons, inaugures an era of “hard-on-holes”, “hard-on-crime”, and perhaps “hard-on”, policies – “socks are dead sexy, but socks with holes lose a great part of their appeal” confirms an undisclosed source, before offering a lemon drop to our reporter.


(1) See how you can combine the F. country and a four-letter word?
(2) Poll by the SOFRES (Sooo Official Flatian Reports and Evaluations Service), Sept. 2005
(3) Association for The Protection of Ur SockS



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